James W. Cheshire

Code Blues will be rocking the big tent on September 14th; hope to see you there!

These are my Top Ten personal musical memories of Napa. It's sort of in a rough chronological order and purely subjective on my part:

10.) THE NOMADS
This was the first band I remember playing sock-hops when I was still in 7th Grade at Redwood Jr. High in 1964. They sort of fell under the radar, then resurfaced a few years later as "ROCKWELL". Later, I actually joined them during the summer of '68. We practiced in Yountville in a wine cellar that later became part of Vintage 1870. There were always a bunch of people that were there listening to us. But the guys in the band were all older, and I got nervous about some of the "adult" things that they were into, so I exited, stage left. Not too long after, I got a call from a guy in SF who said he had seen me play and and wanted me to join their band. I told him that I was still in High School,, and he said "Dude! Quit!" I decided to turn down that offer. He said that his band's name was "Blues Image". All I know, is that later a band by that name had a top-ten hit, "Ride, Captain, Ride."

9.) THE BEATLES COME TO NAPA
You don't remember this? All right, they weren't actually here, physically. I'm talking about the debut of "A Hard Day's Night." I walked down to the Uptown to get my advance ticket, then walked down again that Saturday and stood in line for hours. It was like a Beatles concert, complete with girls in the audience screaming. It was a day I'll never forget.

8.) THE NIGHT PATROL
My first band, with Cecil Huber(Lead Guitar), Jim Reardon (Rhythm Guitar), and Gene Herdrich(Drums). Paul Durbin, Larry Conkright, and Carl Brian had been in the band before me. They needed a Bass player/singer. All I needed was a bass guitar. Mike Stumley was our "manager"; our first "gig" was a party at his house. We always started out with "Time Won't Let Me" by the Outsiders.

7.) PROJECT HOPE
They were THE band in Napa. I remember the first time I saw them in 10th Grade, I just stood there, amazed. Carl Ontis singing "Signed, D.C." and "Dirty Old Man"....I was blown away. Then Carl left, and a couple of years later this exchange student from Denmark with an Afro and a bag of harmonicas took over the group and turned Project Hope into a kick-ass blues band. That was Lee Oskar, who later became an integral part of the group WAR.

6.) QUICKSILVER PLAYS NAPA HIGH
I think this was '66 Homecoming? They hadn't put out an album yet; I'm sure that the adults who approved it probably had conniptions when they saw these "hippies" but it was too late. I thought it was great!

5.) PUBLIC MUDD FOUNDATION
My next band. Greg Miller was an amazingly talented guitarist and singer, so Cecil Huber switched to a Farfisa organ. Jim Reardon was also in it, with Larry Silverman on Drums. We were good enough to get sponsored(with equipment) from a music store, but then it turned out the owner wanted to be more than friends with us, if you know what I mean, so we lost that. We played all over, had a lot of fun. We were the "house" band at a place called "The Teen Club" on Main St. One day the manager told us she was thinking about booking a band that had recently played in Vallejo and was supposed to be good. We had never heard of them, but we ragged on them anyway, and told her that no band with a stupid name like the "Golliwogs" could be any good. She took our advice. Oh, yeah, later the Golliwogs changed their name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. After I got out of the Navy, Greg, Larry, and I got together as a Jazz Combo called the "Ozone Trio" with Greg on piano as well as guitar. Greg passed away at a very young age; what a shame!

4.) MUSIC AT THE FAIRGROUNDS
The Grateful Dead; Big Brother and the Holding Company(Janis Joplin wore the same pant suit that she wore at the Monterrey Pop Festival); Quicksilver; Blue Cheer(they were so loud I thought my ears were going to bleed); The "Phony" Moby Grape; so many more, but by far the most infamous was#3:

3.) THUGS VERSUS COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH
These idiots from the college used to get drunk every weekend and go around looking for "hippies" to hassle. They had harassed my band a couple of times and one time busted my head open. So they were at this concert and waited for the band to come out for their second set and one of them sucker-punched Bruce Barthol, the bass player for the Fish. They could have just packed up, but they stayed and finished the concert. Of course, nothing ever happened to these guys, until...one night we were packing up after playing a gig at the Teen Club. These same thugs busted in and started hassling us. What they didn't know was that there was another band that had played that night; I don't remember the name of the band, but they were college kids from Santa Rosa. They were back stage when they heard the commotion and came out and starting fighting with these guys! They had a friend with them who had a hook on one arm; he got one of the thugs in a headlock and starting waving that hook in front of his face, and the guy was screaming! They took off and never bothered us again. I told the guys in the FISH about this via e-mail years later, and they got a kick out of it. By the way, on their second album, there was an insert called "The Fish Game"; it was a board game that featured various locales around the Bay Area; if you got to Napa, it said "You Lose. Game Over! "

2.) THE SF MUSIC SCENE
I know this is not strictly a "Napa memory" but so many of the bands that played down there also came up to our little burg, including, for a while, the Dream Bowl. Probably the Fillmore concert that I look back on with the greatest reverence had the Byrds as the Headliner. But David Crosby had just quit the band and they just didn't make it as a 3-piece. The 2nd act was the Electric Flag, and I was blown away by their horns, and Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites and Buddy Miles. The 3rd bill was someone few of us had ever heard of. He had performed mostly in clubs, and was anxious about how he would be received by a mostly-white audience. I'm talking about B.B. King, and we all went away that night knowing that our lives would never be the same.

1.) WISDOM
This was a band that I was in my Senior year; Rex Kelly on drums, Mike Tiffany(from Vallejo) on Lead guitar, Me on bass, and the late Steve Rodriguez on rhythm guitar. We played mostly high school dances, but we also auditioned and got booked as a back-up band to play at the Dream Bowl with Santana, I believe. But like a lot of things, it fell through,and there were no more concerts at the Dream Bowl. I was very sad to learn that Steve had passed away. I saw him at a 60's reunion gig that I did at the fairgrounds in the 90's and was looking forward to seeing him again.